


Sand Like Sugar

by downdeepsouth



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: F/F, Trek Femslash Big Bang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 14:50:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12890229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downdeepsouth/pseuds/downdeepsouth
Summary: This is my contribution to the Star Trek Femslash Big Bang 2017: T'Pring and Uhura from TOS. Enjoy!





	Sand Like Sugar

**_Score One for Humanity_ **

Uhura saw herself as a sophisticated, urbane, interstellar traveler. She spoke all of the major Federation languages, and could get along on any Federation world (and most of the other ones as well) without a Universal Translator. She played the ka’athyra and, on occasion, sang Vulcan operas and Andorian folk songs. She had friends of every shape, size, and color.

She knew now that she was a fool.

Being on Vulcan was nothing like spending time with Spock. Spending time with Spock was easy.

Looking back, Uhura was sure it was because her time with Spock was spent on the Enterprise. As enlightened as members of Starfleet liked to think they were, starships were still mostly staffed by humans. The environment catered to human norms for temperature, gravity, humidity, and in a hundred other ways. Surely, in that environment, Spock must have adjusted his behavior. He must have loosened up.

Now that she was on Vulcan, surrounded by Vulcans---herself the minority---she had to admit that she was much less comfortable doing the equivalent of what he’d done every day of their lives together on the ship.

She made a note to send him a message squirt.

In hindsight, it must have been loneliness, the desperation for one friend after leaving a ship full of family, that made her act so rudely. Normally Uhura prided herself on at least being an expert communicator, but you never would have known it.

“Excuse me, have we met?”

The Vulcan woman turned. They were in the market in Shi’Kahr, open at dawn and at dusk, and only when the winds weren’t high. The market was a favorite place for her to people watch---on Vulcan, the diversity of clothing, hairstyles, and makeup was both fascinating and compelling. Off Vulcan, everyone seemed to conform to bowl cuts and whatever uniform was in easiest reach.

“Perhaps your human memory is faulty.”

Take this woman: her hair was in a beehive, with a thick braid over one shoulder and a cute little chain of beads accenting her headpiece. She had metallic eyeshadow that matched her high collar exactly.

“No, I don’t think so. I’m sure we’ve met somewhere before…”

Hadn’t she seen a Vulcan woman with hair like that before? Yes… and at the time, she was surprised it wasn’t a flat cap of hair like every other Vulcan she’d met too. She’d been captivated, just like now.

“Your words would seem to validate my hypothesis. If your memory is that hard to access, how can it **_not_** be faulty?”

Uhura smiled at that. She missed being teased by a Vulcan. Now where did she… ?

Oh. OH.

The moment she remembered, she could see that the Vulcan woman remembered as well. That she had known the whole time. Of course she did. She had an eidetic memory. Besides, she could hardly have forgotten the day she almost married Spock.

Uhura remembered the woman on the viewscreen. And after gushing about how beautiful she was, of course the woman remembered her as well.

“You’re T’Pring.”

“I am.”

With that, all of the little facial and behavioral cues she’d missed before came at her as a rush. The woman’s left foot kept stepping back slightly, betraying her desire to leave the conversation. Her flat mouth wasn’t flat because she had no emotion, it was held in place by the muscles in her jaw.

She never outright stated that they didn’t know one other because Vulcans do not lie.

At some point the Vulcan woman had finally had enough of the conversation. She turned on her heels and disappeared into the market.

“Score one for Human/Vulcan relations…” Uhura muttered, making her own retreat.

* * *

 

**_Curiosity Not Fatal to Vulcans_ **

T’Pring surveyed her grandfather’s shop. Lyres, lutes, and harps of every shape, size, and finish lined the walls, and the room was divided into paths by shelves of strings, togs, tuning pins, and other instrument parts.

She reminded herself that her mother was wise, and her presence here logical.

T’Pring had a knack for generating income.

The first time was on campus at the VSA. She was in the company of Stonn and his companions, and the conversation topic of the week was the “bookstore” opened for students in the center of the grounds.

“It is loud,” one said.

“The air is a combination of outworlder odors,” another added.

“No Vulcans ever go there. Its presence is illogical,” Stonn declared.

T’Pring quickly noticed the truth to their observations: none of their kind _ever_ went there.

For this reason, other Vulcans did not know that one could find padd chargers and storage cards for nearly a quarter of what they were sold for through computer access mail services. She had no idea how the store’s owner accomplished this, but saw an opportunity to expand the radius of this opportunity.

Negotiating with the store owner, T’Pring began to buy some items in bulk herself. She set up kiosks on campus where students could evaluate the prices of her goods without having to go into the bookstore.

In this venture, T’Pring accumulated a tidy sum.

Then there was her plot. Like all Vulcans in the House of Masu Mau-Tan, she had a plot of land to cultivate. On her plot, T’Pring grew teas that she had taken to market to sell since she was a child.

One harvest, she brought them to market to sell, and afterwards explored the wares of others with Stonn and his fellows.

“These outworlders are emotionally attached to their foodstuffs. Look how much they will pay for just the powdered version of a pungent leaf. The ingredients even say there is nothing in the powder that is actually _of the leaf_.”

“All of the outworlder luxuries are sold at an exorbitant rate. They pay tariffs set by the High Council. Do not discourage their emotionalism---it pays for the repaved walking paths.”

Examining a box of tea of the variety _Earl Grey_ , T’Pring was shocked to see what outworlders would pay for it. Smelling the bags, it was obvious that they were similar to Vulcan tea, but much reduced in quality from the travel.

T’Pring marked up her own teas, setting the price point far above what she sold it to Vulcans for, but still significantly lower than Terrans paid for their own tea. Then, reasoning that Terrans might have no experience with Vulcan tea, she brought a gourd filled with smaller thermoses of her different teas for the purposes of tasting.

Her trips to market after that were highly profitable.

Thus, when her grandfather’s profits began to trend downwards, it was only logical that her mother request her to assist him.

She heard the door open. A patron of small stature entered and then, perhaps attracted to the display of ka’athyra on the far wall, moved towards the back of the small shop.

T’Pring would wait two minutes and then make herself available for questions or requests.

The transaction desk was neat, but her grandfather had been in the middle of reorganizing his customer files, all on hand-sized flimplasts in a stack under the desk. She bent down to take apart the towering stack and make three smaller, more stable piles for her to work through later in her shift.

When she rose, she heard a small puff of air.

The Terran woman from the market three days prior was standing at her desk. Her small mouth formed an O of surprise before she composed herself.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. I…”

T’Pring calculated several possibilities:

This woman had deliberately sought her out again for continued conversation. Terrans were, by Vulcan standards, egregiously probing and desiring of one’s private information. Perhaps she sought out T’Pring because she wanted to know more about what happened between her and Spock?

Perhaps she was knowledgeable enough about Vulcans to know the social errors she made three days prior and sought T’Pring out to make amends? Terrans were also excessively emotional in their social interactions, and this one did have more experience with Vulcan culture, however diluted it was in Spock’s daily life…

Perhaps she was attracted to T’Pring. Now that she was unattached, both Vulcans and outworlders had made such attractions clear to her.

None of these outcomes reached a threshold of reasonable probability, as there was no way for the Terran to know that T’Pring would be here.

Then she noticed the set of togs and tuning pin in the woman’s dark, sand-colored hands.

Or, perhaps she came into the instrument supply store to buy supplies in order to service her instrument. Logical.

T’Pring suppressed frustration at her own lack of logic. When presented with an individual who actually conformed to her own standards for beauty and attractiveness---even one as obviously problematic as this being was---her unbonded state pushed her to illogical and inappropriate thoughts.

“Did you find the components you were seeking?” she asked, using the same question she would with any other customer.

“Yes, I… yes. I did.”

The Terran woman’s own emotional control seemed… shaken. This only further reinforced the idea that she had come upon T’Pring by accident.

“The total for your accumulated items is 24 credits.”

The woman handed her a credit chip, taking care to hold it right at the edge so T’Pring could take it without touching her fingers. The consideration did not go unnoticed. To return that consideration, T’Pring did not ask about the parts, even though she was interested in whether or not the woman owned a Vulcan ka’athyra that she was able to service herself.

A logical question, as it could open a new market for her grandfather, especially now that she had set up the shop to take credits, instead of only native Vulcan currency.

The woman nodded to her at the end of the transaction and raised her hand in the ta’al.

“Sochya eh dif.”

The woman’s Vulcan was perfect, even the glottal stop. Most non-native speakers just repeated _Dif-tor heh smusma_ to avoid the stop, but this Terran woman seemed to have no problem with it. She even had a slight accent---urbane, neutral, as one would expect from a news commentator.

All at once, T’Pring found herself possessed by the intrusive urge she had mentally ascribed to this Terran woman on first meeting. Now _she_ wanted to know things she knew were inappropriate to ask.

The woman stopped at the door and turned.

“Listen, I didn’t mean to be so… rude yesterday. I’m a Communications Officer, and on a normal day I’m so much better at reading body language than that.”

“No offense was intended. Logically, none was taken.”

T’Pring was often accused of being short. Certainly at the end of their friendship, it was in Stonn’s long list of her behaviors he found objectionable. She could hear that in her voice now and suppressed another emotion.  

“Humans aren’t like this, really. I know you don’t know that many of us…”

“I know Spock.”

“Spock… isn’t human.”

The Terran woman’s response was… logical. Logical enough that it made T’Pring wish she hadn’t spoken so quickly, and she held her jaw lest she do so again.

Spock was not human. Nor was he Vulcan. And this human, while connected with Spock through her profession, was not here to avenge him or harm her because of her actions against him.

In fact, much in the human’s demeanor made an impression on T’Pring. Her correction was emotionally neutral, even gentle. She seemed possessed with a self-confidence that allowed her to be open in her social interaction.

T’Pring found it fascinating.

“Do you have an instrument for which those are replacement parts? And, if so, do you have any questions about how to service your instrument?”

Were the woman Vulcan, she would have objected to the assumption of a lack of competence. Instead, the question made the woman smile. It should have been a garish gesture but was, instead, pleasant.

“Yes they are! I have a ka’athyra, and I know how replacing the togs is supposed to work, but I was hoping you had some sort of guide or a practice instrument here in the store…”

A practice instrument? Perhaps this was something Terran instrument supply stores possessed that could improve her grandfather’s business.

“Please tell me more about this _practice instrument_.”

* * *

 

**_Fine has variable definitions._ **

“You said it was fine.”

“Dif-tor heh smusma, Nyota Penda.”

Uhura gave T’Pring her best accusatory look through the monitor.

Truthfully, she had already forgiven her. The subspace call was set for an hour, but she’d checked with Sulu and learned that there were several ionic disturbances in their flight path. It might not last that long, and while teasing was fine, Uhura didn’t want to spend the time fighting.

“Things have finally calmed down here on the ship…”

“I am pleased to hear that.”

Uhura gave her a look, knowing exactly what she was doing. T’Pring knew she was gearing up to tell a story and was derailing it with polite pleasantries.

“ ** _Now that things have settled_** , I was able to find time for another _ka’athyra_ lesson from Spock. He noticed my improvement, and especially how well-maintained my instrument was, and asked me if I’d found another teacher on Vulcan.”

Uhura was much better at watching T’Pring’s facial cues and body language now than she had been on their first awkward meetings. She saw the betraying eyebrow twitch and sharpened jaw line at her mention of Spock.

“You said it was fine, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. He didn’t say anything but…”

“…but you are very perceptive. Perhaps especially with Vulcans. Regardless, my assessment stands. It was fine---for me. And still is.”

Uhura laughed, loudly and open mouthed for several long moments before she was able to stop herself. T’Pring just did that to her sometimes---she would take the role of some ancient, powerful princess and the combination of extraordinarily confident body language, effortlessly calm facial features, and a holier-than-thou tone of voice was more than Uhura could take.

“Sugar… Slor-tuk…”

Uhura used Vulcan words in ways she knew T’Pring had never heard them used before to throw the woman off in return.

“… ** _you know_** that isn’t what I meant.”

This time her Vulcan companion’s reaction wasn’t what she’d expected. Instead of a green blush and a few murmured words, T’Pring drew up. She looked well and truly chastised.

“You are correct. It was wrong of me to send you into a social situation of that much importance unprepared. I was in error, Nyota Penda.”

“Oh no! Don’t get all serious. It was fine. It was **_fine!_** ”

Uhura waved her hands and continued to insist until T’Pring seemed to come out of that state.

“And it will be fine too. Eventually. You aren’t the only one whose moved on to someone else.”

Uhura told T’Pring a little about the V’Ger incident, not anything that would compromise Starfleet sharing protocols, and with a focus on Spock and the Captain.

“He seems more at peace now. A lot more.”

“---Nyota, perhaps we can shift the topic of conversation? I find myself not wanting to spend our limited time on this subject.”

Uhura sighed and smiled. Nodding, T’Pring began to tell her of the increase in her grandfather’s profit margin and their hiring of the first Store Instructor, who would offer music classes to small groups for a fee.

There was so much unspoken between T’Pring and Spock that Uhura should have considered that T’Pring wouldn’t be able to handle hearing about him.

She felt like she understood Amanda, Spock’s mother, more now than she ever had before. Being close to a Vulcan meant feeling the weight of their privacy. Everything was a secret and, when they finally found a friend or partner to serve as a confidant, all of those secrets were poured out.

It was no wonder they bonded their children. Getting through adolescence without anyone to talk to was something Uhura couldn’t even imagine.

But it put her in a position where all she wanted to do was say things she shouldn’t. She wanted to tell Spock that T’Pring hadn’t rejected him because he was half-human, but because he was male. That she’d never agreed with Stonn and his friends---she was just young too, and in a friend group where she wasn’t secure enough to contradict others. That she’d been hurt by Stonn as well, after the Challenge when he’d assumed that their years of friendship were just a pretense for an eventual relationship and that all of her comments about other women had been for his titillation, not a true expression of her own desire.

Uhura could say none of those things.

“You are distracted.”

T’Pring’s words pulled her out of her own head, and she blushed, ashamed that she wasn’t paying attention. They didn’t have all the time in the world to talk.

“I’m sorry. I was listening. You are stepping away from the shop soon and want to turn the best students from your grandfather’s shop into performers at Shi’Kahr’s public event venues to boost attendance.”

“You are unhappy.”

Uhura knew she was in a dangerous spot. T’Pring, like every other Vulcan she knew, was bad at interpreting emotions. But they had touched one too many times and, while not formally bonded, the more sensitive telepath could feel her feelings. Especially when talking over a live video and audio stream, which she knew helped T’Pring focus.

“I can speak to him, if this would please you.”

_Does Sarek act like this when Amanda is upset?_ she thought. And then _Does Spock act like this when Jim is?_

“No, Slor-tuk, Ri. That would not make me feel better. I was just thinking about you, and how hard it was for you when you were younger. And feeling bad. Illogical, I know.”

T’Pring didn’t correct her. She had a strange look on her face, which smoothed quickly into the relaxed state her features normally took.

“All I have to do to feel better is think about you now. You are thriving, successful in professional and personal life. When I remember that, I am well pleased.”

At her words, the Vulcan woman’s features softened.

“As am I. This one always pleases me well…”

A smile slowly grew on Uhura’s face. Her eyes flitted to the clock. _22 more minutes…_

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to Beej from Star Trek Femslash Big Bang 2017 for inspiring me to step out into this new ship!


End file.
